Jurors see ‘shopping cart killer’ suspect wheeling bodies from hotel room
Jurors watched a video of “shopping cart killer” suspect Anthony Eugene Robinson going into Room 336 of a Harrisonburg, Virginia, Howard Johnson Hotel with Beth Redmon in October 2021, and with Tonita Smith the following month. In each case, the next morning, Robinson wheeled a sheet-covered body out of the room in a shopping cart and dumped it on a nearby hillside.
In opening statements of a weeklong trial at Rockingham County Circuit Court, prosecutor Marsha Garst told jurors Robinson “killed these women to fulfill his sexual demands.” Robinson had met the women on dating apps, according to Garst.
Garst also told jurors they would see evidence that linked Robinson to the Fairfax County death of Cheyenne Brown, and the death in D.C. of Sonya Champ, although he has not been charged in connection with Brown’s or Champ’s deaths.
In her opening statement, Garst said jurors would see a video of Robinson pushing a shopping cart with Champ’s body in it near Union Station in September 2021, and that his DNA was found on her breast, thigh, and the shopping cart.
Garst said jurors would learn that Cheyenne Brown and Robinson agreed to meet at the Minnesota Avenue Metro stop. An employee at the Moon Inn Hotel in Alexandria will present receipts that show the two were in Room 12 before her body was found in a plastic container near the hotel.
Shortly after Robinson was named the “shopping cart killer” by Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis, in a Dec. 17, 2021, news conference, police also suspected Robinson in the death of Stephanie Harrison, who was also found near the Moon Inn Hotel. However, Garst made no mention of Harrison in the first day of Robinson’s Rockingham County trial.
What happened in Room 336?
Robinson was staying in Room 336 of the Howard Johnson Hotel as part of his compensation for working in a nearby chicken processing plant, according to a hotel front desk employee.
With prosecution witness Detective Randall Life, of the Harrisonburg Police Department, on the stand, Garst showed jurors hotel security video clips of each woman, entering the room with Robinson. The next day, he would retrieve an empty shopping cart, bring it back to the room, load a body-sized item into the cart, wrapped in sheets, and wheel it toward the tree line, near the back of the hotel.
As the jury watched the video of Smith being wheeled out of the hotel room, a family member stood and cursed Robinson. As sheriff’s deputies immediately surrounded the man and moved him into the hallway, Circuit Court Judge Bruce Albertson barked, “Take him into custody now.”
The jury was moved out of the courtroom shortly after the disturbance.
Deputies escorted the man who caused the disruption back into the courtroom to face the judge. The man identified himself as Dean Smith, a brother of Tonita Smith.
Albertson immediately sentenced him to 10 days in jail for contempt of court and ordered that he not return to the courthouse during the trial.
The judge admonished those in the courtroom, “If you can’t handle being here, you shouldn’t be here. Family members think they’re helping, but it’s moral grandstanding. A syllable (uttered) can get you 10 days.”
Garst apologized to the judge for the outburst, saying Dean Smith was not on her witness list, and she would reinforce the importance of courtroom decorum with prosecution witnesses and family members.
Defense attorney Louis Nagy moved for a mistrial, saying the outburst “infers straight away that my client did something wrong,” which the jurors would be unable to wipe from their minds.
Instead, Albertson issued a limiting instruction, telling jurors, “I gave him 10 days. The maximum I can give him. I’m not going to tolerate this again. You are not to consider the outburst, or think if it’s relevant to guilt or innocence.”
During his opening statement, and throughout his cross-examination of prosecution witnesses, Nagy asked, “What happened in Room 336.”
He said prosecutors are not able to present evidence of what happened during the period the women were killed. “To convict a first-degree premeditated murder, you have to be confident of what happened in Room 336.”
The prosecution will resume its case on Tuesday morning.